My prediction is that one day some alternative Python interpreter (Stackless, or GIL-less, or which compiles ahead of time to machine code, or something like that) will go from being merely an interesting concept to a dominant runtime. Python is such an excellent language, and it only has a small handful of elements holding it back from being even better. I feel like eventually something has to give, and either there will be a radical new official Python runtime, or an alternative one that becomes the de-facto standard (Pypy, Jython, Cython, Stackless, etc).

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. I just want it to be so.